


Wounds of the Heart

by hazelNuts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Oblivious Derek, Oblivious Stiles, Pining Cora, Pining Derek, Pining Stiles Stilinski, Soulmates, background Kira/Scott, background cora/lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4486185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelNuts/pseuds/hazelNuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Stiles feels his soulmate’s pain, he’s ten. He wakes up in a panic, the smell of smoke filling his nose, and the feeling of loss taking his breath away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wounds of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really bad at tagging. If you think I forgot any, please let me know in the comments.

The first time Stiles feels his soulmate’s pain, he’s ten. He wakes up in a panic, the smell of smoke filling his nose, and the feeling of loss taking his breath away. He screams for his dad, who comes running. Stiles clings to him all night.

Nobody thinks anything of it. Stiles’ dad and his therapist think it’s another nightmare. Stiles has had so many since his mother passed away.

The second time is not long after. It’s the middle of a school day, and Stiles collapses on the playground, screaming. Scott holds his hand while one of the teachers carries him to the nurse’s office. The nurse calls the hospital when she sees the faint red lines on Stiles’ back.

At the hospital, they tell him it’s his soulmate. Stiles thinks it’s really cool he already has a connection, but his father frowns. Scott’s mom tries to distract Stiles with a lollipop while his dad talks to the doctor.

‘I thought soulmates didn’t connect until they were at least sixteen.’

‘Usually,’ the doctor agrees. ‘But sometimes, when there is an extreme psychological trauma, from either side, the connection is made sooner.’

‘You mean because of his mother’s-‘ his dad chokes on the last word, but he doesn’t need to finish for the doctor to know what he means.

‘It’s possible, but it’s more likely that something has happened to his soulmate. Claudia’s been gone for a while now. If that was the trigger, you would have seen something sooner.’

Stiles frowns at his lollipop. Losing his mom had hurt a lot. It still hurts. He thinks what the doctor means, is that something has happened to his soulmate that hurts even _worse_.

Stiles has nightmares about losing his dad for weeks after that.

For years, nothing much happens to Stiles’ soulmate. He rarely finds any bruises or unexplained cuts on his body. He sometimes feels bad about being clumsy, and joining Scott when he tries out for the lacrosse team. His soulmate must be pretty worried about him. But then again, after years of almost constant bruising, the person must be used to it by now.

When Scott gets bitten, Stiles is relieved his friend can’t feel his soulmate yet. He doesn’t know what he would do if his soulmate got seriously injured.

Turns out, he freaks.

It’s late at night, and he’s already in bed when he feels a pain shoot through his arm. He pulls his shirt over his head, and finds a gaping hole in his arm. He’s a cop’s son, he knows what a bullet wound looks like. He tries to calm himself. It’s only his arm after all, and his soulmate will heal just fine.

He thinks about calling Scott, but decides against it. It’ll be gone by tomorrow anyway. He tries to go to sleep, but he can’t get comfortable. His arm hurts, and the idea of his soulmate being shot hurts even more. He waits until the wound fades, he’s sure he’ll be able to sleep then. Even bad wounds don’t stay visible on a soulmate’s body for more than a few hours. Except this one. By morning, the wound still looks fresh, and Stiles is on the verge of a panic attack. He bandages his arm, so his clothes don’t stick to the wound. He’s not losing any blood, it’s not his wound, but it still hurts.

He tries to conceal his pain and worry as much as he can. He winces when people bump into him and jumps at every sound, but nobody notices, not even Scott.

Then Derek Hale collapses in front of his car. The guy cheerfully tells them that he’s been shot with a wolfsbane bullet, and that they have to help him. Stiles pleads with Scott to just dump Derek in the woods and let him die, but Scott persuades him to get the werewolf to Deaton’s, while he gets the wolfsbane they need to heal Derek.

Stiles doesn’t stop grumbling or complaining the entire ride to the clinic. Inside, Derek pulls his shirt off, and Stiles finally shuts up. It’s not just because Derek has amazing abs. And chest. And shoulders. And arms. Basically really amazing and touchable everything. No, it’s the wound in his arm. A bullet wound in the exact same place as Stiles’.

He’s so distracted by the revelation of Derek being his soulmate, that he doesn’t come back to reality until Derek asks him to saw off his arm.

Stiles tries to conceal the connection as best he can. Derek obviously doesn’t want him. The guy barely notices him.

He doesn’t notice the way Stiles winces when they rescue him from Kate, still feeling the effects of the torture. He doesn’t notice how the faint bruises on his own cheek match Stiles’, after Gerard beat him up. He doesn’t realize that the bruises appearing on his body some Friday nights are because Stiles was on the field, playing lacrosse.

His friends know something is wrong, but Stiles brushes off their concern. Lydia is the one who realizes what it is when Stiles suddenly collapses, grasping his stomach. He later learns it was because Kali shoved a pipe through Derek.

They ask him if he knows who it is. He nods, but doesn’t tell them.

Most of the time it’s easy to ignore all the little pains, but other times it’s nearly impossible. Like when everyone thought Derek was dead. Stiles’ body feels broken, and everything hurts. He barely has the strength to stop his friends from killing themselves at the motel.

Cora tells them that losing pack isn’t like losing family, it’s like losing a limb. She dismissively tells them they wouldn’t understand, but Stiles _does_ understand. Derek’s pain of losing his family in the fire had triggered an earlier connection. He’d felt Derek’s pain when he lost Laura. And when Derek had been tricked into killing Boyd, Stiles had wanted to curl up with his soulmate in a little corner, make sure nothing could ever hurt them again.

Soulmate connections aren’t usually this strong. Most people don’t feel much more than simple cuts and bruises, but Stiles can feel _all_ of Derek’s pain. Maybe it’s because he’s a werewolf. Maybe it’s Stiles’ spark. Maybe it’s because Derek is so emotionally constipated all his feelings get dumped on Stiles.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Because after they defeat Deucalion, when Scott becomes an Alpha, Derek leaves.

~

Derek realizes he’s connected with his soulmate a couple days after the fire, while he and Laura are on their way to New York. His knee stings, and when he rolls up the pant leg to check why, he finds a scrape that he doesn’t remember getting.

He doesn’t give it much thought. The loss of his pack is still too fresh to make room for someone new.

He doesn’t tell Laura until a couple months later. She smacks him on the head, calling him an idiot for getting a tattoo when there was no way of warning his soulmate about the pain. He feels guilty for worrying them, and is more careful after that.

The same can’t be said about his soulmate. He frequently finds scrapes and bruises on his body. Derek worries, but Laura assures him there are many reasons for humans to get bruises. Maybe his soulmate is really clumsy, or does some kind of contact sport, like football or martial arts. Derek grumbles that with his luck, they probably live in a warzone.

When he goes back to Beacon Hills, he expects for him and Laura to build a new life, maybe rebuild the pack. But Laura dies, and Derek is saddled with two teens and a crazy uncle.

His soulmate is getting hurt more often and more severely, but he can’t go looking for them, he is needed here. He’s not even sure he wants to go looking for them anymore.

Of all the stupid things he’s done in his life –falling for Kate, giving teenagers the bite- falling in love with Stiles is the stupidest of them all. He’s the sheriff’s son, and Scott’s best friend. But most importantly, Stiles can’t be his soulmate. He’s too young.

Besides, Stiles already knows who his soulmate is. He’s never told Derek about it, but Derek caught snatches of a conversation the boy once had with Lydia. Stiles told the girl his soulmate wasn’t interested in him, and Derek had wanted to demand from Stiles to tell him who this idiot was so he could beat some sense into them.

Instead, Derek keeps fighting. He keeps fighting the Alphas until he feels the water filling up his soulmate’s lungs, feels the live seeping out of them, until all that is left is Cora, but she’s dying too. He begs his uncle for a way, _anything_ that might save her. When Peter tells him it’ll cost him his Alpha status, Derek doesn’t care. Erica and Boyd are gone, and Isaac has joined Scott. He hasn’t been an Alpha for a while now.

He grabs Cora’s arm and drains all her hurt away. He can feel his powers slipping. He gives Cora everything he has. He doesn’t stop until he passes out.

When he wakes up, he knows they haven’t got much time left. He might have saved Cora for now, but if the Alpha pack, or Jennifer, wins, it will have been for nothing. So he makes himself get up and start fighting again. He fights for his sister, tries to put her in the hole in his heart. It doesn’t work, and he’s losing. In the middle of the fight he feels something smash against his forehead. Deucalion and Jennifer are too far away to have hit him, but when he presses his fingers to the skin, it feels tender and bruised. He almost cries with relief for his clumsy soulmate.

When the fight is over, Derek knows he can’t stay. He needs to get over Stiles before he goes looking for his soulmate. So he and Cora pack their bags and leave.

For a couple weeks he’s fine. The number of bruises and scrapes goes back to normal. Cora teases him about his clumsy soulmate, just as Laura had. Then the headaches start. They come out of nowhere and they never last long, but they always leave him worried. Something is very wrong and he doesn’t know how to help. He makes sure he doesn’t get hurt, not even a paper cut, so his soulmate can focus on themselves.

They’re watching television when he feels the cold creeping in. Cora turns up the heat, piles every blanket in the apartment on top of him, but it doesn’t help. Nothing will help until his soulmate gets somewhere warmer. The cold hurts, but Cora can’t take the pain from him, because it’s not his.

They lie curled together. His sister trying to comfort him, telling him that it will be okay, while he desperately tries to believe her.

He’s slipped into a fitful doze when he’s woken up by Cora shooting upright. There are tears streaming down her face.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

‘Lydia,’ is al Cora whispers.

Derek frowns in confusion. He looks closer at his sister, and he knows. Lydia is her soulmate. He pulls Cora back into his arms. It’s his turn to comfort her.

‘Someone is dead,’ Cora whispers. ‘It’s not Lydia, but someone in the pack.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know what it feels like to lose pack, Derek.’

He swallows and nods. The old ache sensible again over the biting cold.

‘When did you know?’ It doesn’t really matter, but he wants to distract her.

‘When Peter told me about biting Lydia. I was out running one night when I felt teeth clamping down on my side. When I looked, I knew what it was. I was so happy at first, that my soulmate was a werewolf. I wouldn’t have to hide anything.’

‘Why weren’t you happy later?’

‘Because when I realized it was her, I realized I didn’t have a chance. She likes werewolf bad boys.’

‘Maybe she just didn’t know a certain werewolf bad _girl_ wasn’t an option,’ he says raising his eyebrows.

Cora shakes her head. ‘She doesn’t like girls. She doesn’t like _me_. She’s made that very clear.’

Derek doesn’t say anything to that. He just shakes his head and holds her closer. He’d wondered why Cora was so eager to keep Lydia and Aiden apart, and why she seemed so eager to jump between the girl and any kind of danger.

The cold subsides the next day. Derek asks Cora if she wants to go back to Beacon Hills, but she shakes her head, telling him that Lydia has a pack that’ll take of her.

He calls Scott, needing to know who’s gone. His heart breaks a little when he hears it’s Allison. Out of everyone, he’d expected her to outlive them all by sheer force of will.

Nothing happens in the next couple months. Derek’s soulmate goes back to the usual, and Lydia doesn’t get anything but a couple blisters from a new pair of shoes.

They don’t go back until the news about all the deaths in Beacon Hills reaches them. Derek calls Scott, and when Scott tells him about the deadpool, Cora races out of the room to grab their things. They’re on a plane back home five hours later.

Things have changed, more than they expected. Scott has found his soulmate, a kitsune named Kira. There are two more packmembers, a werecoyote named Malia, and a bitten wolf, Liam. Derek sees the regret in Scott’s eyes when he asks him why.

Allison’s death has softened Lydia, made her more vulnerable, but it’s done the opposite to Stiles. The boy has hardened. There are fewer jokes, no more wide smiles. Derek wants to know what happened, but he also knows that now isn’t the time. They have assassins lurking around town.

There is a showdown. There always is. Stiles and Lydia race to shut down the deadpool, while the rest of them try to stop a hit squad from killing any more people.

One of the assassin’s must have gone to the lake house for Lydia, because in the middle of the fight, Cora runs out of the warehouse.

The fight doesn’t last long, and when he looks around he’s relieved to find that none of the pack are seriously hurt. Until his phone buzzes with a text from Stiles, telling him that Cora’s hurt and to bring Deaton.

Derek jumps in his car, calling the druid on the ride over. When he arrives, Deaton is already there, bandaging Cora’s leg. Lydia is holding her hand and calling her an idiot, but both girls are smiling.

The rest of the pack arrives shortly after. They help Lydia clean up the mess, and order take out to celebrate their victory. While they’re eating, Derek looks around the room. Being back with these people feels so comfortable that can’t remember why he left. The excuse of Stiles seems so flimsy now, because this is his _home_ , even if it isn’t exactly his pack.

Stiles is the first to leave, saying that his dad will be worried. Liam jumps up to catch a ride with him. Lydia and Cora decide to stay in the lake house for the night, not wanting to worry Lydia’s mom, and show up with a limping girlfriend. Lydia offers him a bedroom, but he shakes his head, saying he prefers the loft. They all know it’s a lie, but no one calls him out on it.

As he walks to his car, Scott sprints after him. He wants to fill Derek in on what happened after they left. They sit in the car. Derek doesn’t say a word while Scott talks.

Scott tells him about the darkness in their minds after awakening the nemeton, how a nogitsune had used that to take hold of Stiles. They’d lived in a constant state of fear, for and of Stiles. Scott explains how he and Lydia had gotten Stiles and the nogitsune to separate, but the nogitsune was still feeding of Stiles’ life-force, and Stiles had come close to dying. He was barely able to walk, and so cold it had hurt.

Derek feels the blood drain out of face. The dates line up. In fact, _everything_ lines up. His soulmate is clumsy, and started getting hurt more after Derek came to Beacon Hills, just like Stiles. Stiles had drowned himself to find the nemeton, and gotten into an accident the night after. Stiles always knows when Derek is hurt, is always there to comfort him. Derek had thought it was part of Stiles’ intuitiveness, but that’s not the reason.

‘Stiles is my soulmate,’ he whispers in awe.

Scott nods and claps him on the shoulder.

‘If you ever leave again, I will make you my only exception to the “no killing” rule,’ the Alpha grins.

Scott waves him goodbye, as Derek races to the Stilinski house. When he arrives, he doesn’t knock on the front door. He climbs in through Stiles’ window, sighing when he realizes that after all these years, the boy still hasn’t protected his house.

His feet touch the floor, and knows Stiles doesn’t need mountain ash to protect himself. Stiles has him pinned to the floor, a knife at Derek’s throat.

‘Derek?’

‘Yes.’

Stiles slowly moves off him, staring in disbelief and confusion.

‘What are you doing here?’

Derek stands up and allows himself to really look at Stiles. The past six months have marked the young man. His shoulders have broadened from training, and his stance is more confident. There are faint lines of scars on Stiles arms and hands. The anger and sadness that have been a part of Stiles’ scent for so long, are still there, and stronger. The knowledge that he contributed to it, is almost enough to make Derek’s knees buckle.

Instead, he closes the distance between them, and pulls Stiles into his arms. Stiles doesn’t struggle, he doesn’t go stiff, he sags against Derek’s chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ Derek whispers into Stiles’ neck. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see it. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry you had to do this alone. I’m so sorry.’

‘Why?’ Stiles mumbles into his shoulder.

‘Scott told me what happened after we left.’

‘And you think you owe me now?’ Stiles pulls himself out of the embrace. ‘You didn’t want me before, Derek? So why?’

Derek grabs Stiles’ face and tilts it up so he can look Stiles in the eye. ‘I’ve always wanted it to be with you. But the age didn’t fit. I didn’t dare believe it was possible.’

‘Sometimes, when one or both experience extreme psychological trauma, the bond can form earlier.’

For a moment, the loss of his pack feels fresh again. Stiles must have seen something in his face, because he grabs Derek’s hand and squeezes lightly. He lets go to crawl back into bed, and pats the bit space next to him.

After quickly stripping to his t-shirt and boxers Derek lies down next to him. He pulls Stiles close, pressing his chest firmly against the younger man’s back, tangling their legs. Derek revels in finally holding his soulmate, holding _Stiles_ , close.

They’re not done talking, and the Sheriff will probably shoot him, but for now there is no pain. It’s just them.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://fandom-madnessess.tumblr.com/).


End file.
